How to Teach Baking Classes Online with Megan Knudsvig

Megan is a baker and food photographer from Washington. Today, she primarily shares her baking skills with the world through her food blog, The White Whisk. In this third episode of the Content Creator Series, she’s joining Maya to chat about her experience teaching online baking classes! We also chat about juggling life as a mom and entrepreneur, and Megan shares tips for growing as a food content creator in general! Whether you’re a new baker, or seasoned but new to teaching, Megan’s got advice that will help you! You can watch the full interview on my YouTube channel, and the interview highlights are written in the notes below!

What inspired you to start teaching online baking classes?

Megan: “Yeah, so first I am a part of a church where they do like a women’s conference each year. My husband works at the church and so his coworkers all know that I bake. They reached out and were like, ‘Hey, would you be willing to host like this fun breakout session and teach a cookie decorating class?’ So that was kind of my introduction to teaching classes. It was a really fun, chill, safe place to do that because everybody’s so friendly and nice. So that’s what kind of started it, that was my first experience teaching a class. And it was so much fun. I loved being able to share something that brings me so much joy and like share that experience with somebody else so that they can then do that and bake for their family and have a creative outlet for themselves.

So that was my first experience teaching a class that was in person. And then I was at The Bake Fest – the online baking conference – and there was a session with an instructor who talked about how online baking classes have been huge for her business and how it is incredibly beneficial because you don’t have to prep, you know, everyone’s ingredients, you’re just prepping your own and you have such a wide opportunity of people that can come to it ’cause it’s not just local. And so she talked about how beneficial it was for her business and kind of walked through some of the steps with that. And so that really inspired me to try it out. So after that I kind of got my butt gear and figured out how to get one going and kind of the nuts and bolts of that.”

Was it hard to figure out how to teach a class? Or did you kind of just go with the flow?

Megan: “It was a little tricky at first, you know, ’cause it’s like, ‘Okay, how do I make sure everybody can see everything for the right angles?’ The tech side of it is kind of an intimidating because in Zoom meetings sometimes it’s hard ’cause you have this barrier of conversation and like responding that you don’t have in person. So thankfully my husband is really techie so he was able to kinda help me with the camera angles and things like that.

And another thing that was really helpful for the tech side of it was I did my first online class through Eventbrite. Which was super helpful ’cause I started trying it out just to set it up on my blog so people could purchase tickets through my blog and then the class would be on Zoom and this, that and the other. It was just getting too complicated for me. I was like, ‘Ah, I wanna avoid this fee and that fee.’ But, and ultimately when it came down to it, Eventbrite made it super easy for like the setup. They take care of so much for you. They take care of like sending out emails. They have all these templates where you
just fill in the information, your pictures, and your events and info.”

But, so that was kind of the biggest thing I was nervous about.”

Do you test recipes for a while before teaching them to your students?

Megan: “Oh yeah, for sure. So the classes that I’ve done so far, I’ve based off of what the most interest I’ve gotten on my blog and my Instagram. ‘What have people been the most excited about?’

And also choosing something that isn’t crazy advanced so it feels approachable. That really spreads out the options for people that want to attend your class. If it looks crazy intense – and you know, there’s a place for that for sure. And that might be something I do down the line. But for my first few classes I wanted to have kind of a wide net and choose something that a lot of people were interested in and was beginner friendly that I had made lots of times and was super comfortable with to eliminate that piece. Even with simple things, people are new at it. It’s things that come second nature to you, you might take for granted, but this is new information to somebody else. So choosing something that’s really easy for people to jump in with I think was a good move.

I think a good step for somebody looking to get into online classes is if you have a friend or a family member that would be a good test subject to do it with and give it a run through and see what gaps you [have] in your information.”

You share baking tutorials on your blog, as well! Can you explain how a tutorial post is different than a recipe post?

Megan: “When it comes to tutorial type posts, something that I find to be really helpful is to integrate video into the steps. Especially with decorating it’s kind of hard to describe the steps sometimes of the angle that you hold things at, the amount of pressure or swoop. So sometimes what I’ll do is share links into the blog post of like snippets I’ve done on Instagram. So for example, like I have a set of sugar cookies that I have on my blog and for each design I incorporated my Instagram video of one cookie design. So that way I’m maximizing my content, helping it work together, and also making it a more clear tutorial for people. So I think that’s the biggest thing. Tutorials also have a little bit more opportunity to incorporate your affiliate links if you’re doing a food blog. Tie things together because as a one woman show, you wanna maximize the work you’re putting in to be able to have it span across as much as you can.”

What’s the best piece of encouraging advice you’ve received about entrepreneurship?

Megan: “It was from the Food Blogger Pro podcast. They hit it every single episode about just getting a little bit better every day or learning a little bit more every day. And I feel like that has been the most instrumental thing because it can feel very overwhelming when you’re just starting something out and you just like thinking about the mile long list of things you want to do someday or that you need to learn.

It can be overwhelming, but if you just focus on it a little bit every day, it’s gonna grow and it’s gonna get better and you are going to improve your skills and your knowledge of your industry that you’re in.

And you know, not being afraid to try things out and have it not work out. I’m very much a person who wants to be really good at everything I do in every area. And so it’s kind of hard sometimes to like be in a place where you’re like, ‘I see these people, they’re doing it this well, I’m starting out and it doesn’t look like that.’ So being willing to let yourself be not good at something at first to get better and like be able to improve and practice. It’s just those small things add up over time.”

Connect with Megan

Instagram: @the.white.whisk

Website: thewhitewhisk.com